


Trigger Finger

by marsbareater12



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, slight Clintasha at the end
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-26
Updated: 2016-06-26
Packaged: 2018-07-18 08:16:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7307140
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marsbareater12/pseuds/marsbareater12
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Other people - they practice and they practice... these fingers of mine, they got brains in 'em. You don't tell them what to do - they do it. God given talent. </p><p>From MCU Kink!Meme: anyone singing the praises of an archer's fingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Trigger Finger

  
Clint's hands had always ben the best part of him, he thought. Not his eyes, like his fangirls kept screaming, not the hair that he always kept carefully tussled, but his hands - grooves lying deep within the skin, tracing back a million stories and postcards of a million performances.   
  
He'd never thought much about his hands, not until he saw Barney get his hands slammed shut in the window and watched his brother run off, screaming into the night, grasping at the mangled fingers and clutching them together, as if it would make them heal.   
  
That's when Clint realised that hands can be broken. Before, typically, he'd had the childish attitude of him being invincible in the world, and sure he broke an arm here or two, but what use are arms when you have hands?   
  
Since then, he was careful. He wasn't any sissy, he treated them rough and rugged, lugging his bag of mismatched hand-me-down clothes from foster home to foster home, but he kept them away from all the weird smelling bottles in the bathroom, and checked each finger at night, inspecting every knuckle and pressing into the webbing between the appendages. It wasn't insane, he told himself, he was just doing what their old Pa told him - _take care of yourself, boy_ in that old rusty Southern accent of his.   
  
And then came the two Beautroups who's mannerisms ain't nothing fancy like their name were, and they screamed and they cried and they cackled something fierce whenever Barney or Clint didn't do anything to their exact liking. They tried to separate the two, claiming they were bad influences on the other - _the older one's done for but we can try and save the son_.  
  
That night, Barney had a duffle bag at his feet and two hands outstretched and Clint looked at his hands and prayed to God ten times that all ten fingers would stay intact and perfect and Barney was yelling at him to jump so he finally climbed out the window and let himself go.   
  
Ten days later and they were bunking the in the back of the caravan, horse manure seeping into the cracks of Clint's skin, tinging his palms this awful brownish colour that no matter how long he stood on the hose, no matter how much he yelled and swore at them to turn the pressure up, would never leave. The grooves grew deep and wide on his palm from the constant use, his hands getting callused and the skin getting tough enough that when he brushed his hand across a bundle of hay he couldn't tell the difference from the bundle or his hands.   
  
Each night he sat in his bed, counting his fingers, knuckle by knuckle, pressing into the hardened webbing to ensure everything was intact.  
  
 _You got good hands, boy_ was the first thing The Swordsman called out to him, over the field while Clint was knee deep in horse shit. Clint paused, dropped the shovel - _ow FUCK that was my foot OW_ \- and turned to see an older looking man, well worn by the weather but his clothes were flashy and had none of the dust that had been caked into Clint's.   
  
_Wanna be in my act?_  
  
 _Sure._   
  
Clint remembers this moment vividly, when the Swordsman lead him over to a rack of carved metal, glinting in the sunlight, knives and swords of all shapes and sizes lined up next to each other - and he remembers the way Barney cried as the window slammed shut on his fingers, the way they looked all crinkly and wonky next to each other.   
  
_No. No way. Not swords._  
  
The Swordsman looked at the way Clint had mindlessly grasped a stem of wheat in his hands, fingers looping over it carefully near the tip, one sitting back to give it direction. He cocked his head. Laughed.   
  
_Naw, boy. Swords are my trick, not yours. I'm not going to have some punk taking over my act. How're you with an arrow?_  
  
Clint grinned.   
  
_I can try._   
  
Fast forward to the first act of the first show in the season and Clint felt the well oiled bowstring slide through his roughened fingertips, caressing each and every callous he'd earnt over the summer. The bow released, the string vibrating against his fingers and echoing through his bones, anchoring him to the ground as he hit bullseye. He picked up another one, letting the feathers at the end tickle the tips of his fingers before firmly nocking it into place and repeating the entire process, feeling the vibrato travel through the skin of his fingers before unifying in the palms of his hands to travel through his entire body.   
  
He exhaled. Wiped his brow. Sat on the dust at the edge of the tent, head held in hands, just trying to breathe.   
  
_You did it, kid._   
  
And so it was, night after night, packing up the tent and the carvans, hauling lumps of smooth steel wrapped in his roughened palms, moving from town to town, until one night Barney came to him with that same duffle bag, passing it from his hands to Clint, and waiting, expectantly.   
  
_C'mon, it's just a little break and enter. Nothing to be scared of, right Clint?_  
  
And Clint remembered that night where the windows slammed on his brothers fingers and the screech that accompanied it with fingers displaced, out of joint, and he dropped the duffle bag and sprinted off into the darkness, with nothing but the bow and quiver on his back that had become an extension of his body from now.   
  
Six years later and he had a home, of sorts, more like a cell really if we were to be true about it, where he was called out, given time in the real world, for only the price of a dead body - it seemed like a small price to pay, especially given that he'd overheard in the discussions that they could bend and twist and break his fingers and turn them into nothing but mush so if a dead body was the price they wanted for his intact hands, a dead body they would get.   
  
Of course, then Loki invaded and it all went to hell.   
  
The small part of Clint's brain that pushed against the blue, that remained pink and grey matter and every colour it was supposed to be, cringed and screamed at every move Clint made, watching the hands, always watching the hands, because if you ain't got a moneymaker then you ain't got nothing and you gon be on the streets like the rest of those dumb hobos who can't make anything of their life, can they?  
  
To this day, Clint cherishes that Natasha knocked him out, knocked his head against the side of a pole instead of twisting his hands and multiating them beyond repair like anyone else would because they didn't get it, they didn't understand how important it was to have the machine parts of your body well oiled and well formed and perfect in every way and he knew that only she understood.  
  
So when one of the endless reporters shoves a microphone into his face and asks him a question meant for Natasha, it's easy for Clint to accidentally stumble over and answer it instead.   
  
_The most important part of my body? I know, I know, you'll all be disappointed to hear this, but it's just my hands._  
  
Quickly, he balls them up in a fist behind him and laughs, squashing the sincerity deep within his body, and places his arm around Natasha's waist. _Naw, just kidding, it's my face. Wouldn't be able to catch this one without it now, would I? Hell, I doubt even Stark would give me the time of day without this handsome mug._  
  
And as his hands are balled, mentally, he's counting every finger on each one, every knuckle on every finger, and feeling, testing the calloused webbing between them, ensuring they're okay, ensuring _he's_ okay.


End file.
